The Power of What’s Left Unsaid:
Carmen Maria Machado’s Minimalist Dialogue and Emotional Depth
When was the last time you read a story that left you with more questions than answers? Not because it was confusing, but because it revealed layers of emotion, tension, and power through what wasn’t said?
Carmen Maria Machado has a rare gift for this. In her short stories, dialogue is like the tip of the iceberg—sharp, minimal, and seemingly simple. But below the surface, a vast emotional and psychological landscape lies, one that explores grief, identity, power, and autonomy.
Today, I’m diving into three of her stories—Haunt, The Husband Stitch, and Real Women Have Bodies—to explore how Machado masterfully uses minimalist dialogue and silence to tell stories that linger long after they’re finished.
The Ghosts We Don’t Speak Of: Exploring Silence in Haunt
In Haunt, a teenage runaway lives with a grieving elderly couple who believe she’s the ghost of their dead daughter. In this surreal space where life and death blur, silence does most of the talking.
One of the most powerful moments occurs when Elsie, the grieving wife, asks the girl a simple, childlike question after her husband’s death: “Where is he?”
What she gets in return isn’t a soothing answer, but a cold, distant response through a Ouija board: “NOWHERE.”
It’s a small exchange, but it’s loaded with meaning. Elsie is desperate for connection, for closure, but the girl—afraid to confront her own emotions—keeps the interaction emotionally detached. The dialogue is spare, almost empty, but it’s the silence that speaks volumes. Grief, detachment, and fear swirl between the lines.
In Haunt, silence isn’t just an absence of sound. It’s a character in its own right, heightening the emotional distance between the characters. Machado makes it clear that sometimes, the most powerful moments happen when nothing is said at all.
When Words Become Weapons: The Husband Stitch and the Battle for Autonomy
The Husband Stitch is a modern retelling of the classic folktale, “The Girl with the Green Ribbon.” In this version, the ribbon around the protagonist’s neck is a boundary her husband is obsessed with crossing, a symbol of her autonomy that he cannot accept.
From the very beginning, their dialogue is sparse but tense. When he first asks about the ribbon, “What’s that?”, her response is simple: “It’s just my ribbon.” It’s a small, seemingly insignificant exchange, but Machado fills it with subtext. The husband’s curiosity grows into obsession, and his need for control becomes more pressing with every interaction. As the years go on, the protagonist’s resistance wears thin, and the brief exchanges between them grow more fraught.
One of the story’s most chilling moments occurs when the protagonist finally asks her husband, “Do you want to untie the ribbon?” His answer is a single word: “Yes.” It’s an exchange that feels as heavy as any long monologue. In that “Yes,” Machado reveals the full weight of the husband’s desire for control and the protagonist’s exhaustion from years of boundary-setting.
Machado’s genius lies in how she doesn’t rush to resolve the tension. She builds it over time, allowing the conversation—and the silence that follows—to accumulate emotional weight. By the time the ribbon is untied, the damage has already been done. What comes next is inevitable, and Machado doesn’t need to explain it with words.
The Silent Erasure of Women: Real Women Have Bodies and the Unseen Power of Dialogue
In Real Women Have Bodies, women are literally disappearing, fading out of existence while society barely notices. The story centers on a woman who works at a dress shop and slowly realizes that fading women are being sewn into dresses, becoming part of the fabric—literally.
The dialogue in this story is sparse but powerful, especially when it comes to the men. One conversation between two male characters, Chris and Casey, casually objectifies women in a way that feels disturbingly normal. “That’s what you want. Hips and enough flesh for you to grab onto…” says Chris. Casey finishes his sentence without hesitation, “Like trying to drink water without a cup.”
Their words reduce women to objects, reflecting a societal indifference to their erasure. It’s not just their bodies that are fading—it’s their autonomy, their humanity, their worth. Meanwhile, the women in the story speak in short, resigned sentences, aware of their fate but unable to change it.
In contrast to the male characters’ crude dialogue, the conversations between the protagonist and her love interest, Petra, are filled with unspoken tension. Petra is fading, and the protagonist is desperate to hold onto her. “I’m fading,” Petra says simply. The protagonist’s faltering response—“I don’t think—they’re not dead”—reveals her own fear and helplessness.
Much like in Haunt and The Husband Stitch, Machado uses what’s left unsaid to force the reader to confront uncomfortable truths. The dialogue in Real Women Have Bodies is minimalist, but the emotional and societal weight it carries is anything but.
Why Minimalism Matters: Silence as a Tool for Emotional Depth
Carmen Maria Machado’s use of minimalist dialogue and silence isn’t just a stylistic choice—it’s a powerful narrative tool. In Haunt, The Husband Stitch, and Real Women Have Bodies, she shows us that what is left unsaid can often be more powerful than what is said.
By leaving room for the reader to fill in the gaps, Machado creates stories that resonate on a deeper, emotional level. Her characters are often struggling to connect, to assert their autonomy, or to hold onto their identities in a world that seeks to erase them. And through minimalist dialogue and carefully crafted moments of silence, Machado makes us feel that struggle in our bones.
As readers, we’re invited to sit with the discomfort, to engage with the emotional undercurrents of each scene, and to reflect on the societal forces at play. In a world that often tries to rush to resolution, Carmen Maria Machado reminds us that sometimes, the most important conversations are the ones that happen in the spaces between words.
Thanks for reading!
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All stories discussed in this post are available in Carmen Maria Machado’s collection Her Body & Other Parties, available wherever you purchase books.
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